Amazon have 40% off the Vehicle Stamp Set from Melissa & Doug, and are selling it for £5.99 instead of £9.99.

• Get stamping with Melissa and Doug

I think this is a fabulous set, actually. It’s great for teaching about vehicles and for decorating home made cards and so on. I guess if you used the right ink you could even do room décor. Oh, I’ll stop, because I can think of hours and hours of activities with these (and their other) stamps!

In this set you’ll find 10 wooden detailed vehicle and traffic sign stamps, and five coloured pencils for filling in the stamps with colour. There’s also a 2-colour inkpad and it can all be stored in the sturdy wooden box it comes in – although it doesn’t have a lid.

The ink is washable and non-toxic child friendly ink.

While one reviewer felt the set was too small for a small child and more suitable to older children, the other thought it was a really nice set, and while she too would have liked it to have a lid to cover, she loves that it’s washable ink.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD

Melissa and Dough Magnetic Wooden Animals are £5.99 at Amazon right now – a 40% saving off the RRP of £9.99.

• Magnetic Animals for kitchen fun from Melissa and Doug

Magnets go down a treat in our house. My daughter just loves them and they’re fantastic for keeping her busy in the kitchen. She has a barn yard toy, old fashioned plastic letters, numbers and shapes, and a whole bunch of magnets I’ve collected over the course of our travels,  so a nice collection that she plays with.

Melissa and Doug are generally a really good quality product, so I don’t doubt these would be any different. In fact, reviews of this set on Amazon are all four and five stars, with the four-stars missing a point for price or durability – they are printed paper pictures over wood over magnet, so if your child is still chewing everything in sight, it’ll show up on these.

If your child isn’t the chewy type, they’ll  have plenty fun and education learning the names and sounds each of the twenty domestic or wild animals makes, and finding out which ones are wild or farm animals.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey @ HUKD

We recently ordered a few items from the Wooden Toyshop's 10% off offer, which included the Food Groups set from Melissa and Doug and a green shopping bag from BigJigs.

I ordered them together as I thought it would be nice to carry the food in a shopping basket.  While the shopping basket from BigJigs is lovely, it is much smaller than I anticipated.  That said it is big enough for play food, so is probably ideal. This toy says it’s for children 3 years and up, which I don’t really understand as my 20-month old loves having her own shopping basket to carry things around in and there aren’t any small parts or anything potentially dangerous.

The bag has a wooden frame, and the material part is collapsible, so it is easy to pack away, and easy to pop in my handbag if we’re out and she gets tired of carrying it. It really is a lovely little bag, and is well made and I love the idea of introducing the use of reusable bags at an early age. We chose the bag in green, but it’s also available in blue and yellow and costs £5.95.

To go in the shopping bag, we also selected the Food Groups set from Melissa and Doug. There are four ‘crates’ like you’d find at a farmers market, I guess, and in them are foods in four categories: breads, red and white meats, dairy and eggs, and fruit and vegetables. There are nineteen foods in the set, which I thought was quite good value for money. Most of the foods look pretty realistic, with the exception of the chicken and the meat, but my daughter didn’t seem to notice.

It was really great saying all the names to her as we unpacked them, and within a week she was saying them back to me, so I have found it to be really educational too.  Made of wood, I’m happier for her to ‘pretend eat’ these than the plastic set she had for a while, and they don’t become dented or show toothmarks.  While I expect that in time the paint will start chipping, as all painted wood does, it hasn’t happened yet.

I think this play food from Melissa and Doug is really fantastic, and I’m hoping to add to our ‘kitchen’ soon. (P.S. That offer is still valid, so go to Wooden Toyshop for 10% off food toys)

Ever since a class mate brought her Hannah Montana stamp set to school, my lads have been obsessed with stamps. Finding boy-friendly sets isn't easy and this Melissa & Doug Friendship stamp set is still a bit on the girly side but I don't think they'll notice! It's £5.99 at Amazon, down from £7.99.

• Click here to get stamping!

Kids can while away hours if they're supplied with enough paper, stamps and ink - but you probably do need to lay out clear boundaries if you want to make sure the walls don't get, um, redecorated with inky fingers!

This set comes with 8 stamps including a rainbow, hearts and more, plus a 2-colour inkpad. You can colour in the pictures with the 5 coloured pencils, and the whole set is conveniently contained in a sturdy wooden box for organising and storage. The inkpads contain washable, non-toxic kid-friendly ink.

The set is suitable for children aged from 4-7 years old, and is eligible for free super saver delivery.